Mentone Pre School Acknowledges the Support of the Victorian Government

We’re loving Term two, two, two.

How about you, you, you? So much to do, do, do.

Here in Term two, two, two.

April/May Committee Meeting

Items:

• Treasurer discussion around budget

• Open Day recap

• Kinder Assessment

• Enrolments post-Open Day

• Fundraising

• Social events for parents

• Maintenance of building/premises

Key Dates:

Kinder Assessment 27 May

Trivia Night 1 Jun

Penguins Working Bee 15 Jun

Photo Week 17 Jun

Officeworks Sausage Sizzle 22 Jun

June Committee Meeting 29 Jun

A Big Thankyou to our Sponsors…

Office Works Bendigo Bank Men’s Shed (Braeside Park)

Baker’s Delight Sciclunas Mentone

Photo Week: Commencing Monday 17th June

Seastars - Mon (Reserve Wednesday for rain contingency).

Dolphins - Tues (Reserve Thursday for rain contingency).

Penguins - Tues Bush Kinder (12:30-1:30) & Thur Regular Kinder (Reserve Friday for rain contingency).

REGISTRATION CLOSES ON Friday 14/06/2019.

Please refer to your registration form for information on cost and how to register.

Apr/May Newsletter

Newslettertter

'Square' Point of Sale:

We can now accept tap-and-go/credit card

payments at the kinder for your convenience.

Please have a chat to one of us in the office if

you would like to finalise any payments using

this option.

Woolworths Earn & Learn:

1st May – 26th June

Mentone Pre School is collecting stickers to gain resources through this fantastic

program. Every $10 spent = 1 sticker. Pop your stickers in collection boxes at Woolworths Mentone, Woolworths Thrift Park

and at the Pre School. Family and friends can get involved too, so spread the word!

Working Bee…

Penguins families are required to help at the

next Working Bee which will be held on 15th June.

However, parents from other groups are also encouraged to participate, as we need all

the help we can get! We cannot manage & maintain the kinder

without you, so please help wherever you can.

Thank you…

The Cadbury Fundraiser raised $2100 for the

pre school.

A MASSIVE thank you to everyone for selling (or eating) Freddo Frogs. Also, thank you to the families that donated towards this

fundraiser.

A grand total of $2171.65 was raised, which is

nothing short of amazing!

This money takes us nearly half-way to what we need to raise for the new flooring at the

pre school.

Well done everyone and thank you so much!

Officeworks Mentone Fundraising Sausage Sizzle:

Save the Date & Call-out for Help

Saturday 22nd June 10am-4.30pm

A fundraising sausage sizzle will be held at the brand-new Officeworks, Mentone. We ask all families to donate at least an hour of their time to assist with cooking the BBQ and selling

sausages/drinks. This is an amazing fundraising opportunity for the Pre school. We also have a great opportunity to

maximize our profit by taking advantage of the Officeworks End Of Financial Year Sales.

We need all hands on deck to make this event a success.

A sign-up sheet can be located in the foyer, so please get in quickly to pick a time that suits you.

We need at least three people an hour to help, so please consider how you can assist.

Healthy Kids…

A new resource has been provided by the Department of Health. It is a guideline around how much physical activity children require over a 24hr period to promote their health and

development. See link below for further information.

https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/DAAD9AEB38F655D6CA257C75001B546D/$File/24hrGuidleines-Factsheet-fa-0-5.pdf Please visit the website for more resources and information.

www.startingblocks.gov.au

SATURDAY 1ST JUNE MENTONE LIFE SAVING CLUB 7PM for 7.30 START

$30 per person Book before Sunday 6th May and pay $25 per person Ticket price includes a drink on arrival and nibbles throughout the

night.

Drinks during the night at bar prices.

Please book by 26th May and select your table at

https://www.trybooking.com/BCBCV Limited tables available so get in quick! For enquiries please contact Fundraising Committee:

Get together your friends &

family to join us

for a fun night of Trivia,

Games and Prizes

Seastars Report… We are now into week 5 of term 2, half way already. We had a wonderful finish to term 1 with a walk to Bakers Delight and a play at the local park. What a thrill it was for the children to purchase their own hot cross bun and pay for it on their own. Thank you to the parents and grandparents that joined us on our walk, we appreciate your help. We anticipate to have a few more walks during the year building our connections with the local community. We welcomed the children back after a very relaxing holiday with new activities and experiences for the to enjoy. It was lovely to see all their smiling faces and how excited they were to return to kinder. It warms our hearts immensely. We began the term with an exploration of magnets and what we could find in the room that was magnetic. We were impressed that magnets could pick up more than one object at a time. We have been talking to the children about sustainability and recycling. The children were curious about what we do with our food scraps at kinder. We have firstly looked at the worm farm just to look at the worms. What they look like, what they feel like, how they move. We will then look into how a worm farm is good for the environment and how we can better use our kinder one. We have celebrated the special people in our lives, our Mums with a small celebration where the children had the opportunity to sing their favourite songs learnt at kinder. It was a lovely opportunity for the children to share their kinder with their mums or dads. Thank you to everyone that could make it. We recently started a ball sports program at kinder with a lot of children showing interest in Auskick. We have been teaching the children skills such as, throwing and catching, balance and movement, kicking etc. All things that help build muscle strength, body awareness, coordination and sensory processing. Some of the activities offer the children a challenge that they might not always get during free play helping build confidence and self esteem when the challenge is achieved. This week we had a visit from St John Ambulance who talked to us about safety, being safe and helping someone who is hurt. Natalie read the children a story about a boy who helped a friend who fell off his bike and was injured. He had to check for Danger, was he safe? Was his friend safe? Then he had to see if his friend was responding, was he awake? Then he had to call 000 for help. All the children we very aware of the number to call in an emergence which was good. We all then had an opportunity to practice our bandaging techniques. Some of us may need a little more practice. Our term so far has been very busy with activities supporting the children's learning and interests. We are always offering opportunities for the children to keep developing their fine motor and writing skills ready for when they go to school. It's always good for parents to have a small area at home with paper and pencils to give your child every opportunity to refine this skill. Social and emotional skills are always big in our program. We support the children in their social/emotional learning through social stories that show ideas how children can join in play, how to be a good friend and how we can understand and deal with our emotions. Also through role modelling and conversation. For our kinder kids, friendships and emotions are huge and

understanding them is sometimes tricky. We need to let children know that we understand their feelings but we always need to give them the skills to deal with those big emotions. Numbers and letters are everywhere. We have had many children return from holidays excited about numbers, counting and adding up. We provide the children with many different opportunities to develop numeracy and literacy throughout our program. When children are exposed to literacy and numeracy learning through hands on, practical and play based experiences, they are more likely to engage meaningfully and successfully with them.

Last week we introduced the children to our kinder bears ‘Lloyd’ and ‘Chocolate’. Each week 2

children get to take the bears home for an adventure. With the help of mum and dad or older siblings the children can write, draw or take photos of their adventures to share with the group. This is another great way we engage children in literacy, writing and sharing their stories with others. So much is happening at kinder everyday. Please remember to check your Flexi buzz, email and your child's pigeon holes so you don't miss any exciting news. Thank you to all the parents and grandparents for your support. We love having you visit or help out. If there are any parents who would like to share a skill or talent with the group we would love to hear from you. Police, fire fighter, paramedic, nurse, baker, or even if you would like to read a story in your first language we would love you to visit us some time. Just see one of the staff or send us an email.

Michelle, Anne and Robyn.

Penguins Report…

Hello penguin families,

Half way through term and it feels like we haven't really had a chance to fill you in on all the

excitement and learning!

We began the term by ensuring that all children felt safe and secure about returning to the kinder

environment, ensuring that the routines were familiar and relationships were supported. We have

had some children who needed a little extra support after the holidays but we can see that they

are quickly settling back into kinder life.

Thank you to all who were able to make it to our Mothers and special friends day. it was a lovely to

see families spending time together.

We have been focusing on supporting the children in strategies of self-regulation and utilising the

Alert program to support the children to label emotions and regulate them. It is a simple program

that uses the visual aids of a red car that is "revved up red" and a yellow car that is "mellow yellow".

and a white one that is just right white. The children learn that when their engine is "just right white"

it’s best learning. The strategies we use to make our engines ready for learning (not running too fast

or slow) are, counting as we take three deep breaths, finding a quiet place or using calming

sensory materials.

We have also been enjoying our singing bowl to calm our bodies and some children have decided

that they would like to do some meditation when they hear the singing bell.

We hope to continue this as we look forward to a four week yoga and imaginary play program with

Karen Robotis from Willow way. Karen will be joining us every Friday from the 31st May for four

weeks. Of course, we will continue to enjoy our science, music, cooking and the all important PLAY!

BUSH KINDER!

We we have enjoyed 5 weeks of our bush kinder program and it has been beautiful to watch the

children enjoy the freedom and excitement that nature brings. Our favourites have been the

"broken tree" and this week we all went on a hunt to find a little fallen down tree, a climbing tree

and a tree with a hole and we found them all. Anne and I have noticed that this year’s group

really like getting dirty and drawing and playing in the dirt has been a popular activity. The children

are learning about the boundaries, where we can and cannot play and how we can keep

ourselves safe.

We were also lucky enough to visit the "Mens Shed" who showed us their workshop, made our bag

hooks at the park and did an amazing job at repairing our puzzles. So thankful and wonderful to

show the children the importance of supporting and connecting communities.

We would also like to say a thank you to Evelyn's mum, Xin Xin who read The Hungry Caterpillar to us

in Mandarin. We are looking forward to hearing more stories in different languages, imbedding

respect and appreciation for the amazing diversity in our community. We have a few parents on

the list to help so please feel free to let us know if you would like to share your culture, skills, interests

or passions, we'd love to hear from you.

We are also loving the family culture book and love

seeing your contributions.

Congratulations to Chethana’s family who celebrated

the arrival of their baby boy Devansh Kumar on 5th

April. Congratulations Mani and Girija!

Dates ahead...

31st May - 21st June (Fridays) Yoga and imaginary play

program.

18th and 20th June - photo day.

28th June - last day of term.

Dolphins Report… Welcome Dolphin families to our May news! We are in the middle of Term 2 and the children demonstrate

much enthusiasm for connecting with their peers, educators, routines and activities.

Our recent Mother’s Day discussions focused on inclusive family experiences. We read stories about dads, mums, grandparents and explored how all the different adults caring for us are involved in everything we do.

At our Mother’s Day family afternoon, we had mums as well as grandmothers participate in our family

singalong. We received much appreciation for hosting the family event and thank our families for expressing abundant pleasure for receiving a framed photo of their child as well as the photo booth pictures. The

Dolphins children loved having all the activities!

Music supports the child’s developing brain and in

Dolphins, musical experiences are considered as an integral aspect of our program. The children are

responding well to our incidental and whole group

music encounters. We provide fun structured and spontaneous times for singing, dancing and

movement activities. The children are discovering their voices as we play vocally throughout the session.

We have been particularly exploring soft singing with

a high voice register to develop tuneful singing. It is wonderful to observe them being confident and

involved as musical learners. We will continue to play

vocally throughout our sessions.

Melbourne brings out an array of weather surprises! The children have delighted in their

observations of autumn leaves during sunny

days as well as cold, windy ones. They showed wonderment as leaves fell from trees

or blew around the yard. We will continue

investigating the season of Autumn via observational and creative activities.

And as we embrace the colder weather to come,

we have brought out the gumboots for mud and

water play. (The children love splashing in muddy puddles!!!!)

We encourage our families to provide a set of gumboots for outdoor messy play. Please also pack

jackets, coats or hats for outdoor play on colder

days too. Thank you!

Children

communicate by

using a wide range of media, resources and

texts. They use different materials to express their ideas and this helps build their

confidence to become effective communicators. Evidence of the Dolphins children becoming capable communicators occurs throughout their sessions as

they engage in meaningful learning. See more wonderful examples below.

Upcoming Dates:

• Tuesday18 June Photo Day

(Thursday 20 June is booked

for any contingencies)

Warm regards

Teresa and Robyn

Dolphins Educators

Thank you to all our families for your incredible support. It is so

much appreciated by the children and educators.